


we're the restless hearted (not the chained and bound)

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Bratva (Arrow), Bratva AU, Bratva Oliver Queen, F/M, Human Trafficking, Mob Dynamics, Russian Mafia, descriptions of torture, descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-09-27 09:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20405719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: Trying to escape her past, Felicity Smoak finds herself in high demand of the Bratva where the highest bidder is one Oliver Queen. In an instant, the world she was trying to escape is replaced with one far more twisted, and the services that Oliver requires may get her into more trouble than she's prepared to sign up for - but now she has been claimed as his property, will leaving the Queen household ever be possible?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a prologue for now, but the fic is coming along in big steps since I started it in 2016 (y i ke s)!
> 
> I really hope you guys like this. The subject matter starts a little heavy, but trust me on this one.
> 
> There are heavy mentions of human trafficking among multiple chapters. Part of the reason this fic has taken so long is that I spent a solid year doing a lot of research on the subject matter, so I really hope that I've covered it delicately without ignoring the severity of the subject. Needless to say, nothing is what it seems at the start of this fic.

The frozen bite of the air was harsher than she expected it to be indoors, but Felicity Smoak had felt the cold in her bones for so long she could hardly remember how it felt to be warm.  
  


There were shouts and cheers around her, and she shuffled a few steps forward in line with the woman before her. There were more women after her, but she’d been pushed to the front among the younger women. Younger women were always first, but it was the lesser of two evils. At least being at the front of the line meant the humiliating parade was over faster, but there was no way of telling what would await them at their next destination. From the sickening glances of the men around them, it wasn’t hard to guess.  
  


She didn’t know where she was. Some of the others must have known because she’d heard them muttering prayers in languages she didn’t understand. The women she spent the majority of her time with were of a variety of ethnicities, though most of them seemed to be from Eastern Europe. They communicated in small, broken sentences as best they could even though there was little to say with language barriers on all sides, but she knew their prayers. She knew them from the whispered pleas in what they assumed was the dead of night, she knew them from the grateful murmurs that spread through those that remained where they were kept after someone other than themselves was taken.  
  


Some were children. Some clung to their mothers. Some were torn away and never returned, and there were no prayers that could ease the horrors they knew awaited those poor children.  
  


Ahead of her, one remaining man stood on the makeshift platform - what appeared to be a small table that didn’t appear to be completely stable. From the way the man before him was gesturing to his arms and making grand gestures, she assumed that he was being sold for work. If nothing else, the men were cheap labor and there were plenty of businessmen on the shadier side of the law who would cut corners in hiring staff in order to get the job done. He wasn’t up there for longer than a minute before there was a cheer and he was led away, resigned to his new fate, handed over to a new ‘master’.   
  


The thought made her skin crawl, but even more unsettling was the fact that his sale took her a few steps closer to that platform herself.  
  


Felicity Smoak didn’t belong here.   
  


None of them belonged here. None of these men and women had done anything deserving of being sold as a possession. Some of them simply owed money after a bank refused them a loan, some had been taken while traveling, some had been threatened until they had no alternative. Some had taken up their place so that their children weren’t targeted, though they rarely had any security on that.  
  


The woman ahead of her cried out as they pulled her towards the platform. She had been through horrors beyond human imagination already, as a woman even younger than Felicity herself. She didn’t speak a lot, but Felicity had overheard her speaking to another woman before and knew that she’d been out dancing with some local boys in Prague, ended up taking a drink that she was too drunk to refuse, and had woken up in a country she couldn’t even name. They’d taken her money, her passport, everything of value, much like they had done with Felicity, and now she was far from home with no way of contacting anyone for help.  
  


She had the disadvantage of being a young, beautiful woman. She was taken from the small, cramped room they attempted to sleep in most nights, and she’d scream and try to fight them every time. She knew what awaited her. They all knew. Sometimes it was hours before they brought her back, shut down and emotionally blank in a way they were all starting to understand. It was easier to close yourself off and not to fight because then you weren’t hurt. Comply, bide your time, and when you get any opportunity - run.  
  


But there were no opportunities to run. They clung to that hope in vain. The only certainty was that they would never eat enough to ease the hunger cramps, they would never ease the pounding headaches that came from dehydration, and they would never get over the humiliation of being locked filthy, near-naked in a room of other women who all prayed to their gods that they weren’t abused that day. They would sleep on sacks and bags, locked together with little to cover the cold, unforgiving ground.   
  


A rousing cheer interrupted the room, and the crushing weight that Felicity had been carrying in her chest for the last month dropped like a rock in her stomach. Nausea she’d been fighting back at the smell of this room alone threatened to overwhelm her, but collapsing on the spot would do her no favors, and it certainly wouldn’t help her avoid what was happening. The line shuffled again as those behind her were urged forward, shunting her up into full view of the room. They cheered as she arrived - a young American with mostly blonde hair and blue eyes would fetch a high price. Others had eyed her in captivity and warned her that men would pay for her, and she’d be in high demand. 

They had been right. Every direction she looked in, men were eyeing her up and down, leering and exchanging looks between them which made her skin crawl. She had never felt so exposed, so humiliated, so detached from her normal life. 

A heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder, causing her to gasp. She couldn’t understand the words that flew quickly from the auctioneer's mouth, but the crowd was responsive. Every raised hand and eager shout brought another sickening wave of nausea. She was being sold. She was being auctioned off to the highest bidder as if she were nothing more than cattle. She was being moved to a life of abuse where one of these men would own her. She’d be property. An asset. An investment. A toy. A decoration. 

She wanted to go home. She wanted to close her eyes and wake up in her own bed with the lilac bed sheets she’d changed just before she left her apartment for the last time, with the smell of her coffee maker drifting in from the kitchen and no concerns other than whether she had any bread left for toast or if she was reverting back to the half-empty box of cereal. She wanted to hear her mother’s overly concerned voice making sure she’d packed enough and that she was taking protection because you never know who you might meet in Europe and oh, if only she knew. 

Her mother would never know what had happened to her. The only person who knew where she was couldn’t tell anyone now, and her mother would go about her life wondering why her daughter had fled to Europe and never contacted her again. She’d wonder if she’d met a man, settled down and started a family, and whether she’d been purposefully excluded from that family and what she had done to deserve it.

But first her mother would call the police, and maybe she had already done so. She had friends in the police force who would escalate it higher because it was Donna Smoak and they all remembered that little chocolate haired girl sat at the bar doing her middle school homework. The police would go to the hotel she was staying in and they’d find the luggage she’d left behind, just her clothing, toiletries, and her passport, and they’d tell her that nothing seemed out of the ordinary because Felicity didn’t disappear from her hotel room and nothing about her capture would give any clues to where she was.

Her mother would be apologized to. Her mother would be told there’s nothing they can do. Her mother would lose her daughter because any moment now she wasn’t going to be Donna Smoak’s daughter anymore, she was going to be Felicity Smoak, Property of…

“SOLD!”

The eruption in the room this time was one of disappointment, and she almost threw up in her mouth. Her empty stomach rolled and it was all she could do to remain upright as the man holding onto her gestures to the winner, who stood towards the back of the room.

Her buyer was taller than most in the room and certainly stood out from the crowd by being more well-kept and cleaner in his appearance. There was a gentle shading of stubble on his cheeks that wasn’t as vile as the dirty patches of hair on the faces of the other men before her. Beneath his thick, wool coat she could see an open-buttoned shirt collar, something that made him appear more of a businessman than the rest of the depraved rats who had bid on her.

But he had bid on her. Personal hygiene didn’t excuse that.

His piercing blue eyes locked in on her as he spoke aside to the man with him. Others were cursing at him, but he kept his gaze on her and it froze her to the spot. The tidied appearance did nothing to calm the storm of this man, the storm that began behind those blue eyes and suddenly took over his entire form. This was a dangerous man. He looked at her with curiosity, not a treacherous lust, which concerned her. Curiosity from a man as dangerous as he could be her end. She’d heard stories of men who liked to take risks with their woman that toed the line of safety, and none of it was consensual. She’d heard of women dead and disposed of like trash because their bodies hadn’t been able to take what they were dealt, and she knew there was a very real possibility that this may happen to her.

She belonged to him now.

She belonged to the man with the blue eyes.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity arrives at the home of Mr. Queen and learns what she has become a part of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all a massive THANK YOU is in order. I've been nervous about posting this one because of the subject matter and your response has been phenomenal!

The whirlwind that followed was not unlike what Felicity had experienced before.

Immediately after her sale was confirmed, the blue-eyed man she’d locked eyes with - Queen, they others had called him - had disappeared from sight. In the rush of an erupting crowd all cursing his name for casting the highest bid, she hadn’t seen him leave after the purchase and he hadn’t been the one who had approached her to lead her from the stage. 

Rather, the person who directed her away from the room was the darker-skinned man who had been standing at his side. He was larger in the shoulders in a way that dwarfed her close up, and she could tell from the hold he had on her arm that it was all muscle. This man wasn’t someone she could escape. He was striding out of the room and into a small hallway almost as dismal as the location she’d been brought from. It was littered with half-emptied boxes and crates of rotting food that she had to stumble around as the man who led her away strode briskly forwards. She wouldn’t be able to outrun him if she even had the nerve to attempt it. She may be small, but she wasn’t scrappy to give herself enough of a fighting chance. Her only line of self-defense relied on whatever she could remember from her six-month stint of defense classes that her mother had once insisted she take - and it hadn’t been of any help to her so far. 

Once they reached the exit he released her arm and turned to face her. She had to crane her neck upwards to meet his eyes, surprised to find them filled with pity rather than indifference, but she immediately looked back down again to watch how he would slip bindings around her arms. He tied them with fabric that was soft, but strong enough that she wasn’t able to slip through and escape. She wasn’t going to complain about that, because it was far more comfortable on her broken skin than the ropes and makeshift shackles she was used to.

After he’d secured her hands he placed more of the same fabric around her eyes, tying it in place at the back of her head to entirely rob her of her vision. The sudden plunge into the pitch darkness wasn’t as frightening as it had been initially, she was sadly quite used to being blindfolded up to three times in one day for varying lengths of time, but what did take her by surprise was the warmth that surrounded her afterward.

Hands on her shoulders. Thick, heavy wool weighing down on her. A coat. He had placed a coat around her shoulders. She’d guessed from the language being spoken earlier that they’d crossed the border into Russia, and that explained how freezing cold she’d felt since they arrived, but the prospect of stepping outside in the middle of a Russian night when all she wore was a long torn shirt they’d thrown over her that barely reached her thighs was scary all on its own.

Until this man had placed a thick coat around her shoulders. 

Her hands were still bound so she couldn’t tuck her arms inside the sleeves, but even the weighted material around her shoulders and covering her back was more kindness than anyone had shown her since this mess started. She tried to tell herself that this wasn’t kindness, this was practicality because it wouldn’t do to have someone they’d just purchased die of hypothermia, but as he led her outside the hand remained on her shoulder rather than a harsh jab at her back with a weapon that she was used to, and it was hard not to feel somewhat cared for.

She heard a door open ahead of her, and then she felt a hand on the back of her head, pushing her down. She moved with it until she was sitting down in the backseat of a car. She could smell the rich leather interior, either new or recently upholstered, and the heat was on inside the car. She couldn’t feel anyone else sitting around her, although she guessed that her buyer was in the front passenger seat, as the man who guided her into the car leaned across her to plug in the seat belt, she felt her eyes well up and was almost glad for the covering.

The last time she had been in any vehicle, she’d been tossed into the back of a van without any car for what she landed on or how badly her shoulder had hurt in the days that followed. 

Was this how Stockholm Syndrome started? A small, insignificant kindness in comparison to the horrors other man had subjected her to and she was sold - quite literally.

“Are you warm enough?”

She choked on air when she heard the question close to her ear. It took a moment for her to understand what was being asked of her, in very clear English with a homely American accent. She could only nod, trembling until she felt the final rush of cold air from the door shutting beside her. After that, there was only the warmth from the car heater that surrounded her.

It was pointless trying to keep track of which way the car was traveling or to try and ascertain where she was because to do so she’d need to know where they had been in the first place. She had no idea, so she just sat in silence as they traveled. The warmth from the heater combined with the heavy coat around her shoulders quickly spread through to her extremities, warming the fingers which had been half numb for weeks. It was almost painful as the tingling started, heat replacing the ice-cold numbness in her feet, but she bit down on her cracked lips and made sure not to make a sound. They had shown her no violence so far, but she didn’t want to mistake the lack of punishment for kindness. 

They drove for a long time, and while exhaustion always ran deep in her bones these days, it was impossible for her to tell how much time had passed. The two men in the front of the car spoke a few words to one another in Russian during the journey, but mostly remained silent as they drove back, and neither of them spoke to her. It was already late when they’d arrived at the auction, and she had no idea where they were or what time it was when the car began to slow before a set of large gates. When they stopped momentarily she recognized the mechanical whirring of gates opening and then closing behind them when the car had drive forwards again. 

When the gates closed behind them she felt another sinking feeling in her stomach, as if the gates had closed on her freedom when that, in fact, had been forfeit some time ago. 

The car remained at a steady but slow pace as they drove beyond the gate, and it seemed only moments before it was stopping altogether. Once they had, she heard the car door ahead of her slam shut and the sound of heavy footsteps leading away from them. Felicity swallowed apprehensively, as the remaining man moved slower out of the car. With her hands bound, she simply remained where she was and waited for further instructions. 

When the door at her side opened, the first thing that happened was a flood of light as the darker-skinned man released her blindfold and leaned over to unbuckle her seatbelt before he was guiding her out of the car. Mr. Queen was nowhere to be seen. It was bitter cold outside, even more, so having been sat in the comfortable warmth for an hour. Her breath shuddered into the air before her as she waited, and the man remained before her. 

“What’s your name?” he asked in an American accent. His Russian had been good earlier, but his American was clearly native.

“Felicity,” she responded, her voice harsh from the self-induced silence she’d imposed during her first journey of the day.

“My name is John Diggle, I’m Mr. Queen’s bodyguard,” he explained.

She nodded in silence. Mr. Queen himself was still nowhere to be seen. She assumed he’d vanished into the large building behind Mr. Diggle. Large, however, was an understatement. While she’d seen mansions before, this was something beholden to itself. In the midnight shadows, it seemed almost gothic in design, but the majority of the exterior was a light sandstone with climbing ivy against the walls that would be rather picturesque in daylight. The windows were large but covered with thick curtains that blocked everything out bar the slithers of light from around the edges, though most of the upstairs were plunged into darkness. 

As homes went, it felt intimidating in its size. The architecture was doused in the shadows of the sharp gothic accenture higher up on the building, the darkness dominating over what she imagined should be a building detailed as beautiful and breathtaking. Instead, knowing what fate awaited her inside, she couldn’t see it as beautiful. 

Her attention was torn away from the building when Mr. Diggle took hold of her wrists and she flinched at the touch. “Don’t try to run,” he told her simply. “You won’t get far in this weather and even if you did, you’d be caught. Do you understand?”

She nodded, but he seemed to be waiting so she answered him verbally as well. “I understand,” she murmured.

Once she’d confirmed, he turned his attention to the bindings he’d placed on her wrists earlier. With a quick tug on the material, he let it run loose so that her hands were freed, and on impulse, she pulled them away to rub the feeling back into her wrists. While much more comfortable than the other bindings she’d had, it was still uncomfortable. She could hardly remember how it felt to not have the nagging tease of cramped muscles, whether it from her binds or the uncomfortable overcrowded way she would try to sleep with the next woman just a breath away from her. 

She could feel it. The instinct to run. 

It was something built into her now, part of the blood that flowed through her veins, and it took everything to dampen it. Even with all the warnings and the odds stacked against her for survival, her body wanted to bolt away from the clear and present danger and take her chances of staying alive in the freezing weather.

The bite of the air chilled her to the spot. The idea of stumbling through the snow in nothing more than she wore at that moment wasn’t all that appealing, even if it did hold the slim chance of getting home. Survival, for the moment, lay in keeping her head down and doing as she was told, which was not to run and not to fight.

So she did neither.

“I know you must be hungry, Felicity. I will see what I can do to get you some food.”

Much as the offer of warmth had done, the offer of food surprised Felicity. Mr. Diggle appeared to be relatively kind considering the circumstances of her meeting, although she did immediately wonder again whether or not this was all to lull her into a false sense of security. But his eyes were warm. He was looking at her like he genuinely cared that she was hungry.

When was the last time that someone cared that she was hungry?

“Thank you, Mr. Diggle,” she whispered, her voice cracking in the crisp air.

“You can call me John,” he told her.

John.

Call me John.

As if they were...friends?

She simply nodded. Words failed her. By now she had expected to be locked in another room or worse, and instead she had been taken by these men and _ I know you must be hungry, are you warm enough, call me John. _ It was confusing. It was worrying her even more as to what would follow, but she didn’t have time to think about it as _ call me John _put a hand on her shoulder to lead her into the large house before them.

The heat of the building took her by surprise, and within a moment she could feel the air around her starting to thaw the tips of her frozen fingers. The entrance hall itself was bigger than her entire apartment back home, in fact, she could have likely fit all her belongings two-fold into the large expanse that held nothing more than an empty-topped sideboard and a rug that looked more expensive than everything she owed combined. 

It led onto a large spiral staircase, decadent and almost fairytale in appearance were it not for the punctuation of deep ebony railings striking against the rich tones of the wood. At the top, the hallway extended in both directions but she was lead towards the right, down the corridor until they reached a room right at the far end of the hall. 

Mr. Diggle, John, knocked on the door and when there was no protest he opened the door. He led her inside, keeping the hand tight at her shoulder as they stepped into an office. It was richly decorated, with a large desk at the back of the room, two leather chairs before it. In the much larger charge behind the desk sat Mr. Queen himself, currently having a very clipped phone conversation in Russian.

He didn’t seem to be in a rush to finish his phone call, so they stood to wait. Mr. Queen kept his side of the conversation short, but he did not take his eyes off Felicity which had her internal panic rising again. He gestured to the chair opposite him and before she could realize it was an invitation extended to her, John was guiding her forwards until she found herself sat before him. As she did so, he ended his conversation, slipped his cell phone face down onto the desk and nodded to his bodyguard.

“Thank you for your assistance tonight, John. I can take it from here.”

Mr. Queen’s voice was far from the casual manner he addressed Mr. Diggle in. It seemed that she wasn’t the only one allowed to call him John, although she supposed that he did work for Mr. Queen and he couldn’t really do anything about what he was called. Both men were American, so didn’t speak to one another in Russian in front of her.

She was certain that she had imagined John squeezing her shoulder ever so slightly before he released his hold on her and stepped away. Was it a warning, or a reassurance?

When he left everything felt thick with silence. From wall to wall, this place had seen things she couldn’t imagine. She could feel the secrets laying on her with threats of what could possibly happen to her here, where no one could be held accountable for anything that might befall her. The room smelled distantly like leftover cigar smoke, yet she couldn’t see any evidence of Mr. Queen being a smoker so she assumed she was not the only lost soul to enter his office tonight. She wondered what had become of the person who was here before. Was it another like herself, a poor woman with nowhere to run and no one to come for her?

He tapped a finger on the smooth wooden surface of his desk. Much like the rest of the room, it looked obscenely expensive. As he did, he continued to watch her. Now that they were alone his gaze felt heavy and so unwelcome. 

“This is my personal office,” he began. “After tonight, you will never step foot in this room again. Consider it forbidden to you. Do you understand?”

Forbidden was an understatement. She felt like she was a little girl on the edge of the forest, and grandmothers house was so far away and the wolves were closing in. Correction, the wolf was circling her, with darkened cobalt eyes and a jawline sharper than a wit she’d long since buried.

“Tell me your name,” he said simply when she didn’t answer.

At first, she intended on remaining silent. Where she’d been kept previously, she’d frequently been beaten for speaking, even when questions were asked of her. Then again, anything could warrant a beating with those monsters. The man before her, however, was a different kind of monster altogether, far more intelligent. This was a man who didn’t need to rely on violent strength to strike fear into a person, much less a person with many increasing reasons to be afraid.

“Felicity Smoak,” she responded obediently.

“Miss Smoak, do you understand?” he repeated his question.

“Yes.”

“Speak to me _ properly _,” he snapped.

“Yes, Mr. Queen,” she answered quickly, her tone quieter but considerably more downtrodden. 

He was silent for a moment, and she could feel his eyes on her again. His gaze was heavy, weighing on her with all the responsibilities of the life she had fallen in to. She couldn’t bear to lift her eyes to his and meet those blue eyes that seemed to stare into the depths of her soul. She wanted to revolt, to rebel, but rebellion would carry a consequence, yet submission felt too much like defeat.

And yet Felicity knew that was exactly what she was. Defeated. 

She had no place to run.

“You will address me properly when you speak to me, I do not stand for disobedience in my household,” he told her sharply. “Bad behavior is punishable, whether exerted towards myself or my staff. Understood?”

“Yes, Mr. Queen.”

He didn’t react to her response but simply continued speaking. “You will have frequent contact with men under my rank, all of whom are loyal to myself and my household. If you break any of my rules, rest assured I will hear about it. You should understand each of these men is as dangerous as me, should you try to run, you will not make it far enough to scream for help.”

She said nothing to that. It was a far more sinister warning than John had given her not minutes before. She knew that running was useless, from the weather alone, but Mr. Queen was far more threatening in his delivery. 

“Raisa is the housekeeper,” he continued. “In the morning, she will show you the estate and the areas of the home which you can occupy. Tonight you will be shown to your room only, where you will remain until morning.”

This time, Felicity’s brows twitched into a frown. “My room?” she asked. She hadn’t been expecting personal space. Sure, he made it sound closed off and prison-like, but she hadn’t been in a room by herself, even to bathe, in weeks. 

Before, she’d had a whole apartment to herself, and while it had been small and what any realtor would sell as ‘cozy’, it had been enough for her with everything that she needed and that was all that mattered to her. She’d grown far too familiar with being crowded in with a group of women she scarcely knew, and now he was talking about a room all of her own?

“Yes. You may treat it as your own,” he confirmed to her, his voice softening for just a moment almost in pity before he cleared his throat and adopted a sharper tone once again. “Bear in mind that the furniture is expensive and I do not expect it to be damaged or require replacing. It may be your room, but make no mistake that you are a guest in this household and the respect that I expect from you extends to my home and my belongings.”

His eyes raked over her after he spoke, which she didn’t ignore. She knew that her physical appearance was a mess and that any intentions on his part were purely animalistic, the hungered look of a man with cares that didn’t involve consent. No man who purchased a human being could give anything less. He looked at her like she was the prize of a game she couldn’t afford to play, as though she were a belonging and nothing more. It made her blood boil. It was something she could never get used to, something that still infuriated her, the way men looked at her like she was a piece of meat.

“Respect has to be _ earned _,” she snapped out before she could take stock of the dangerous predicament she was in. 

The moment the words left her tongue, he was on his feet, rising from the chair and circling the desk between them until that minimal safety barrier was gone. He stood above her so she was forced to crane her neck to look up at him, the full stance of a man she knew could have her killed in a moment or drag out her torture for days. Bratva Captains were brutal in their behavior and while her knowledge of their world was limited, she knew there was no way he’d be a Captain without earning it.

“Respect from you was priced at two million rubles, which I paid in cash,” he countered her biting remark. “Respect from you is _ instant _, I am not waiting for a cheque to clear.”

She swallowed, dipping her head and staring instead at the carpet. She was tempted to slip off her ill-fitting shoes and dig her toes into it, to anchor herself in and sink into the floor, to disappear into the walls and the full bookshelves and become nothing more than a fleeting memory to anyone who had seen her that night.

When she said nothing, he huffed slightly, a small sound of victory that had him stepping back and taking a seat on the edge of the desk instead. He was still higher than her, though not quite as intimidating. It did nothing to dispel her fear. “We can spare the cliche of making this harder for yourself, Miss. Smoak. You should be thanking for me.”

“I have nothing to thank you for, Mr. Queen,” she whispered quietly. She knew what fate would await her inside his home, and all this conversation was really doing was delaying the inevitable.

“On the contrary, you’d have been used and left on the ground already if I hadn’t saved you.”

He said it so casually that she glanced up in confusion. “_ Saved _ me?”

“You belong to me now, Miss. Smoak.”

Her resolve surfaced once again. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

“You were bought for a price and now you are owned,” he said simply. “You have become wrapped up in a world that you cannot understand the dangers of. I would recommend that you acquaint yourself with our policies quickly, Miss. Smoak. I would hate for a woman of your obvious intelligence to misunderstand why she is receiving punishments.”

She tried not to look scared, but she was terrified. Despite the casual manner in which he spoke, his threats were frightening and she knew that she was out of her depth; she had been for some time. “You _ can’t _ do this,” she argued weakly, her voice quiet and defeated. “This is _ illegal _, it’s against the law-”

“Yes, it is,” he acknowledged. 

“You can’t _ own _ a _ person _.”

“And yet here you sit before me,” he gestured to her with a sweep of his hand. “You are mine, Miss. Smoak.”

“I will never be yours.”

She expected him to tower over her again, but he barely registered her words. He just stared at her. Piercing eyes on defeated orbs, blue meeting blue. She wondered if his acceptance of her speaking up was amusement, or whether he was testing her to see how far she would push him before he decided to push back, but she took the opportunity all the same. “If you think I’m going to give in to you, you’re wrong.”

“Is that so?” he mused. Yes, so it was amusement. Of course, he was enjoying this. 

“I’m a human being, I’m not a pet.”

“You’re right,” he agreed. It frustrated her more that he was agreeing. He knew that this was wrong, that it was against so many laws, that it was depraved and illegal and immoral, but that meant nothing in their world. In the seedy underworld she’d found herself in, these circumstances were a way of life. “A pet would be significantly easier to train, however, a pet would not have met my needs.”

There it was. 

“I’m not your slave. I am not going to be your cheap sex toy.” She could feel the tears welling now, not from fear but from anger. Resignation. Desperation. If this was going to be her fate, she would not go quietly. She would not be a submissive woman kept in a darkened room and brought out only to satisfy a man on his request. If that meant her death, or worse, then so be it, but she would not resign herself to that.

“Miss. Smoak, do not make the mistake of considering yourself cheap,” he bartered with her. “If I wanted a cheap whore, I merely have to snap my fingers and ask the request. What I have secured with your price is something far more.”

He reached out to her and she flinched back from him on instinct. He grazed the back of his finger across her cheek, a touch that would be intimate if it weren’t laced with such intent. With his touch came the overwhelming scent of a rich cologne and beneath that something woody and unique. It was the softest touch of a hand she’d experienced in weeks but it still made her stomach turn.

“Is this how you make yourself feel like a man?” she asked, her voice shaking. “To own a woman?”

“You’ve vastly misunderstood the terms of your residency, Miss. Smoak,” he said, drawing his hand away and standing up. “Come with me.”

She remained seated, confusion grasping her again as he moved behind her towards the door. 

“Miss. Smoak, do not mistake an order for a request.”

She stood, the last of her defiance melting away into the leather chair she vacated. He led her down the hall, trusting that she was following him without looking back to check on her. They went past the same staircase she’d come up not long ago, further to the other side where there were more doors than the original end. Some of the doors were ajar, revealing the bedrooms, and one of the doors she caught a glimpse of a blood-stained man who merely looked at her as if she were a confusing addition to the household.

Mr. Queen stopped outside one of the doors, and she assumed that this would be her bedroom. He made sure to watch her as he opened the door and allowed the light from the hall to cast into the darkened space. 

Between the light from the all and the added luminance of a soft peach bulb from the far side of the room, Felicity could make out two small beds in the center. It was a space much similar to Mr. Queen’s office, although here there were scatterings of books, a small train set and…

This was a child’s room. 

There were children in the bed, fast asleep. It was hard to tell with the limited lighting but she could see at least that there was one tightly tucked up little boy and a sprawled out girl each in a twin bed of their own. 

“These are my children,” Mr. Queen told her. “Alexa is six years old. Max is four. From tomorrow morning, you are their carer. You will be their tutor, their nanny, and you will be with them from the moment they wake until the moment they fall asleep. You will keep them out of trouble and educate them.”

Felicity remained silent. 

She didn’t know what she could possibly say.

“Would you like to reconsider thanking me for my generosity?” he asked her with that taunting level of amusement dripping into his tone again. “Or do you still consider yourself a purchased sex toy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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**Author's Note:**

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